The borrowing of autumn and the use of fall in a seasonal sense gradually focused the meaning of harvest to "the time of gathering crops" (mid-13c.), then to the action itself and the product of the action (after c.1300). Figurative use by 1530s. Harvest home (1590s) is the occasion of bringing home the last of the harvest; harvest moon (1706) is that which is full within a fortnight of the autumnal equinox.

v.

c.1400, from harvest (n.). Of wild animals, from 1947; of cells, from 1946. Related: Harvested; harvesting.